Gavin Masterson

If you are a regular user of #Rstats for geospatial work, would you say that the #RSpatial ecosystem is, broadly-speaking, in a good place following the recent retirements of GDAL etc?

Specifically, I am interested in whether you think the #RSpatial workflow is user-friendly and efficient.

Edit:
I am referring to the rgdal and rgeos package retirements.

Mar 21, 2025 at 10:00amWeb
Show threadJakub NowosadMar 21, 2025
@gavin Just to clarify -- GDAL was not retired (the rgdal package was). There are many ways to use GDAL tools in R, including through packages such as sf, terra, gdalraster, and others; R also has excellent spatial viz tools, with packages such as tmap, mapview, mapsf, and many others.
Show threadGavin MastersonMar 21, 2025
@nowosad thanks. I meant rgdal 😅
Show threadA. Márcia BarbosaMar 21, 2025
@gavin Yes, it is. My code feels and works much better since I updated it to modern spatial packages.
Show threadKrzysztof DybaMar 21, 2025

@gavin I think the R-spatial ecosystem is primarily designed for ordinary users (check out terra, sf, tmap, etc.), but there are also dedicated tools for developers (like geos, wk, gdalraster).

The spatial task view may be useful: https://cran.r-project.org/web/views/Spatial.html

CRAN Task View: Analysis of Spatial Data

Base R includes many functions that can be used for reading, visualising, and analysing spatial data. The focus in this view is on “geographical” spatial data, where observations can be identified with geographical locations, and where additional information about these locations may be retrieved if the location is recorded with care.